Gen Z Quits Smartphones to Make 2005’s iPod Classic Great Again
KEY POINTS
- •Search interest for retired iPod Classics and Nanos spiked by 20-25% on eBay from January to October 2025 compared to 2024.
- •Katherine Esters bought a $100 Classic model on Facebook Marketplace to avoid constant smartphone notifications during walks.
- •Gen Z buyers, driven by economic anxiety and nostalgia, prefer the single-purpose music experience, even using iPods to circumvent school phone bans.
In a plot twist that would make Apple engineers weep, people especially under 30 are dusting off their retired MP3 players like iPod Classics and Nano models, which Apple dumped in 2022 after failing to monetize nostalgia. Searches for these relics surged 20-25% on eBay between Jan and Oct 2025, according to sneaky internal Axios data. Katherine Esters nabbed a Classic for a cool $100 on Facebook Marketplace to 'cleanse' her brain from the plague of smartphone notifications, proving that manual music-loading friction-maxxing is officially the new wellness trend. Meanwhile, Gen Z's economic anxiety fuels this comeback as they yearn for simpler times sans ads or apps. Perfectly timed with school phone bans, some sneaky students are apparently using iPods as the OG tech to dodge social media jail. Yet despite this analog renaissance, streaming racked up a staggering 1.4 trillion US song plays in 2025, crushing any hope that CD-click-wheels will dethrone Spotify just yet.
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Gen Z just rejected TikTok dopamine for the thrill of accidentally rewinding an iPod Classic with its legendary click wheel. Welcome to digital detox, 2005 style—when a portable music player was also your social status symbol and biggest tech flex.
Who needs algorithmic playlists when you can spend 20 minutes manually loading 100 songs and then pray your iPod doesn’t freeze like a rebooting Tamagotchi?
Students using iPods to dodge phone bans is peak irony: abandoning smart gadgets for dumb ones to play hide-and-seek with modern surveillance.
Source: Axios | Published: 2/21/2026 | Author: Sami Sparber
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